Pasha
Defend Kebab
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User ID: 481
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
This might be true, but also there is the real possibility that Europe just cannot sustain industrial competitiveness without the Russian fossil fuel resources. Survival can mean many different things. If we aren't freezing every winter thanks to our massive newly built wind/solar capacity but Germany has lost almost all its car manufacturers in the meantime, that means effectively game over for Europe. It stops being a relevant actor in the world stage and becomes a continent wide carehouse for the elderly.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
There are a number of seemingly sensible actions that they seem to markedly refuse to take, including, to the dismay of Russian milbloggers, attacks on bridges (outside of that one particular one near Odessa) and power plants in the Ukrainian rear, and (to my own greater incomprehension) a WWII-style dumb carpetbombing of Avdeevka which seems to continue punching way above its moral weight in pinning down the DNR
This is something fascinating to me as well and the fact that it is not discussed openly almost at all is crazy for me. Currently there are no good explanations for why Russians aren't using tried and tested shock and awe tactics like this. Why is there a single railway junction or energy plant or bridge still standing in Ukraine? The Russian explanation (they are just too humane) and the Western explanation (they don't have the capacity) are both obviously bullshit. Early in the war the sensible explanation was that Russia wanted the infrastructure intact since it would soon own them, or need it for its own troop advances. Now that doesn't look likely either.
All of this makes me think there are a lot more backroom communications and dealing going on than what is being acknowledged for PR reasons.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
When I sort comments by top, it’s not like the Reddit “top” but more like the “best”. So newer comments with fewer upvotes are higher up. Is this intentional?
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
If you seriously believe this, isn’t this extremely counterproductive? What are you going to get out of making those potential Von Neumanns into 1.6 child average secular adults? Isn’t it much better to let them continue with their extreme multiplication rates so in a couple generations we have 20 Von Neumanns instead of 1.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Game of thrones started extremely strong and then kept hitting a new low every season. Gonna wait a couple of years to see how this one goes
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
There is plenty of things "impressive" with what Hasidim manage to uphold in both Israel and the West. The main problem is that they are simply one group out of many, and if everyone (or even some significant number of groups) behaved like this we would very soon have societal collapse and descend into tribal warfare. They are a truly insignificant minority in America and rest of the West, but Israel is already waking up to this problem.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
I mean, the rules didn't differ so much in places where the elderly did get vaccinated. Once you agree to the premises of corona containment, nothing other than a perfect vaccine with universal uptake can stop the madness.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
For your information, daytime marriage shows were banned in Turkey by decree by the broadcasting regulator a couple years ago (at the absolute peak of their popularity). For corrupting public morals. To be honest, those shows very quickly degenerated into reality TV shows full of casting agency models trying to achieve fame through scandals.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
France is an actually important country (2nd tier at least) with a hyper presidential system. It is more or less the only country left in continental Europe that believes in some sort of national destiny, which gives its rulers the power to do great or terrible things if they choose to. In contrast, almost every other politician in Europe is not much more than middle managers intent on keeping their order and bereft of any actual ambition. Who cares if Swedish diluted Neo-nazis get 3% more votes every election after all? Honestly what can they do?
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
I don't think comparing immigrant assimilation between Europe and America is that sensible. The power of American culture is a zillion times stronger than almost any European one. There are immense economic and social opportunities for assimilating into the dominant culture in comparison. Western Europe lacks this almost completely. The natives themselves can barely justify their own cultural existence and mostly see themselves as "America with funny language and some quirks".
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Others already recommended the famous Mearsheimer book, but I suppose we all know almost nobody will buy and read the whole book over this discussion. Luckily, he gave a famous 1.5h lecture about it at University of Chicago which happens to be at their YouTube account: https://youtube.com/watch?v=RTksWA1I2UI
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
I am not inside of anything. Not even an American. I am just able to see that he is the front runner republican candidate by a large margin and the only competition is basically Trump-but-better-at-politics. That says something right?
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
It might have something to do with the very observable fact that most software engineers have a much lower self-confidence than doctors. Masking has become at this point the ultimate way of avoiding giving offence to “somebody”. Most software engineer types I know would start sweating cold at the thought of getting called out by someone with more social prowess than themselves (ie almost everyone) so they go really out of their way to avoid any possibility
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
This explanation for the disappearance of flu is extremely naive. It disappeared in plenty of places without much adherence to those “basic protocols”.
The relation between those protocols and flu transmission is something extremely fuzzy, since we pretty much know at this point that this diseases are airborne and don’t really spread by touching some handrails, but by breathing the same air with an infected person. Hence the lack of any evidence of mass transmission in massive open air stadium events, while choirs and karaoke bars kept creating mass spreader events. Hence how social distancing quietly but surely went from literally keeping your distance to avoid a particle landing in your face, to meaning de facto indoor capacity limits.
The theory that regular flu strains disappeared due to being outcompeted by covid, and staged a comeback when enough people got covid and developed immunity, conforms much better to the real world patterns. Flu was gone for a much longer period of time than people actually giving a damn about the “basic protocols”.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Do you think it’s a coincidence that those same asian countries also got bogged down into a forever masking and forever state intervention loop at this point? China and Hong Kong is obviously the worst examples but most of East Asia seem to be utterly unable to move on. Have you considered that maybe the masks themselves play a big role in this as you turn an abstract threat of an invisible virus into a clothing ritual everyone has to partake every single day or otherwise face social scorn and state sanctions?
Say what you want, when I see a group of American kids who continue their regular life at this point vs a group of Japanese kids wearing a mask most of the day every single day, I know which society is healthier.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
You are assuming “everyone” is just the Americans here. Many places around the world (ranging from most of Asia and Latin America to Germanic/Francophone Europe to former white British colonies) had experiences with covid which very much justify that depiction. Indefinite house(or proper) arrest, and mass firings of people not going along with the hysteria was a reality less than a year ago. There was a very credible possibility that even worse would come, as anyone who saw the news coverage in places like Austria could easily deduct.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
my whole comment was about how i wished that stupid people didn't perceive masks as some sort of satanic ritual designed to make their lives worse
If people believe that the masks don't help against the spread of covid, and spent 2 years constantly harassed to put one on, I don't think this is such a weird conclusion to arrive at.
Where I live, the public health authorities stayed very adamant that masks don't work until Fall of 2020. At that point when corona returned the political pressure to do "something" was so great that they had to concede and advise to the cabinet that mask mandates might help, with the side note that "they don't work directly but they might make people obey other rules better". Of course in the end for whatever reason the masks didn't have any visible affect on the numbers and we ended up with a total lockdown and national curfew for months. But that is another story.
What am I supposed to conclude from this episode with the masks? They were quite clearly admitting that the reason I had to go around with a mask on my face 8+ hours a day was that it would make me more obsessive about the virus, and avoid human contact. Now does it make me "stupid" to perceive as some sort of ritual designed to make my life worse?
P.S. I know we aren't on reddit anymore, but I don't think calling people you disagree with stupid is fitting to this place in any case.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Even assuming that people actually cough into their well sealed "KN95 respirator" (eww), what proof do we have that those respiratory infections actually spread by coughing and the relatively larger sized particles?
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
I cannot reliably reproduce this, but I swear sometimes it keeps happening (especially on mobile safari). When I click the "-"(minus sign) at the left side to hide a thread, sometimes its entire parent is hidden instead.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
Same here. An accurate reporting of the IPCC findings would probably get you flagged as climate denialism on most of legacy/social media. Most of green investment is hopeless for supporting an industrialized society and in my opinion promoted only because it is an excellent way to guaranteed profits through government subsidies. If there is a real problem here, and this is the best our ruling elites can come up with, I think we are seriously screwed.
On the other hand, I am intensely curious about what global warming means about the gigantic swaths of Earth which are currently not really habitable (looking at you especially, Canada and Russia). Also with the continuing advances in genetic engineering, I wonder if crop failures are such a big risk as we are supposed to believe. But speculating seriously about these things also seems to be crime-think nowadays.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1yr ago
I don't understand how moving things online saves energy. Now instead of heating 25 kids in one classroom, you have 25 kids in 25 bedrooms with the heater on. Same goes for basically any office space.
We have "survived" covid in large parts because all fiscal constraints were forgotten for 2 years and all Western governments engaged in massive scale money printing to stop any social unrest. This is of course not really possible anymore, as there is already massive inflation. "Close everything and pay people to do nothing" might seriously lead to empty shelves and worthless paper money this time.
Meanwhile the virus itself didn't put any actual constraints on healthy young/middle aged people (the demographic that does almost all the work) to go out and do actual physical work. Governments mostly just told them to put on a mask and continue with their jobs. Not having energy and materials on the other hand cannot be solved in such manners.
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